52-story condo tower planned in South Park

South Park could get a lofty new tower largely with the help of floor-area rights from the Los Angeles Convention Center.

An Alhambra developer wants to build a 52-story condo tower at the corner of 11th and Hill streets, according to a filing with the Department of City Planning. The filing requests a transfer of nearly 400,000 square feet from the nearby convention center to the site, for what would be a 564,000-square-foot tower with 528 condo units.

The city’s transfer of floor-area rights (TFAR) program is meant to incentivize development away from sensitive or historically significant areas.

The tower would also include ground-floor retail and the developer wants permission to sell alcohol at five establishments. The property owner is South Hill Holdings LLC, controlled by Alhambra-based Hing Tat Chan. The LLC purchased the property in 2014 from a trust for $16 million, according to property records. Its currently home to a single-story manufacturing plant.

The convention center’s operator, Anschutz Entertainment Group, announced a major $1.2 billion project of its own earlier this month. The expansion includes an 850-key hotel, the addition of 350,000 square feet to the convention center itself, and the redevelopment of the Gilbert Lindsay Plaza from a bus and car drop-off to a garden and outdoor event space. The aging convention center was last overhauled in 1997.

The project at 11th and Hill streets isn’t the only one requesting a transfer of floor-area rights from the convention center. Mack Urban filed for a 16-story tower on S. Olive Street on Wednesday requesting 15,000 square feet of buildable space.